Saffron cake

I'm not a big fan of Christmas as a holiday, it's to commercial and I find a lot of the traditions quite restraining. Maybe I would feel differently if there wasn't Christmas stuff in the shops already in September. It's only November now, but I've already heard enough Christmas songs. At work I'm for sure the grinch, and my colleague S is definitively the Christmas fairy.

Anyhow, there are things I do like about Christmas, like a lot of the traditional food and drinks. In Sweden we make a lot of cakes and buns with saffron before Christmas. This is a slightly different saffron cake compared to the traditional ones. It got a beautiful yellow colour, and helps me feel maybe a tiny bit more happy about Christmas approaching.

Saffron cake
200 g butter
0.5 g saffron
2 eggs
3 dl sugar
1.5 dl milk
1.5 cm fresh ginger, grated
4 dl plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
juice from 1-2 lemons

Preheat the oven to 175C

Butter and bread a 24 cm cake tin

Melt the butter

Using a pestle and mortar, powder the saffron threads with a little sugar

Whip eggs and sugar. Add saffron, butter, ginger, and milk.

Add the baking powder

Finally add the flour and make a smooth batter

Pour the cake batter into the tin, and bake for 45 min.

While the cake is still hot from the oven, pierce the surface with a fork and pour onto the lemon juice.

Dust over the cake with icing sugar before serving.

Here is a different Christmas song, Achtung Christmas by Tyskarna från Lund (the Germans from Lund). The band started as part of a Swedish comedy group, Varanteatern, and makes fun of stereotypical synth music.